Dr Tracy Westerman AM

THE WAIT IS OVER. 🎸🔥
We are thrilled to announce that Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett & Martin Rotsey will be joining us in Sydney to perform acoustically at our 2026 Westerman Jilya Institute Indigenous Child Suicide Prevention Fundraising Gala.
This legendary Australian band has spent decades using music to spark conversations, inspire action and stand up for what matters. To have Peter and Martin performing at our Gala in support of Indigenous child suicide prevention is an incredible honour.
✨ This is our biggest Gala yet.
✨ Our first-ever Gala in Sydney.
✨ An unforgettable evening of impact, purpose and world-class entertainment.
 
🎟️ Tickets are already selling fast on pre-sale — YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS!

events.humanitix.com/jilyagala2026
 
Help us create a future where every Indigenous child has an equal opportunity to thrive.
 
For corporate sponsorship enquiries, please contact:
admin@thejilyainstitute.com.au
 
#WestermanJilyaInstitute #MidnightOil #PeterGarrett #MartinRotsey #FundraisingGala #SydneyEvents #IndigenousMentalHealth #ChildSuicidePrevention #TicketsOnSale #BePartOfTheChange

In America right now, Black activists are saying something that has stopped me in my tracks:

“for a lot of people, it feels dangerous to hope”.

They’ve earned that caution. And yet last week they dared to hope anyway, and they made history. In Mississippi, deep in the old South, Scott Colom became the state’s first Black US senator since the 1870s. Georgia elected the first Black woman governor in American history. Michigan elected the first Muslim to the US Senate. New Mexico elected the first Native American woman governor. States that had never had a Black governor now have one.

And here we are watching the rise of One Nation: fearing the trajectory we have watched in the US, while quietly telling ourselves “only in America; that would never happen in Australia” and I know I’m not alone in what I’m feeling. Australia has never been perfect. The fair go has never been equally given. But for most of my life, I believed we were moving forward, slowly, sometimes painfully, but forward. Now, for the first time, it feels like we are going backwards. And that is why so many people are genuinely afraid.

I believed in this country with everything I have. I was a kid from the remote Pilbara. Neither of my parents went past Year 3 and my mum wasn’t even a citizen of her own country as an Aboriginal woman. I did most of my university subjects by distance education, but I dared to hope I could become a psychologist. Nobody could tell me it was impossible, because this country had told me that if you work hard and put your head down, the things you dream about will come.

Lately that hope has started to feel misplaced. Not because the dream was wrong, but because I’m watching a country that seems less sure it wants to keep that promise to everyone.

But hope was never the soft option. Hope is what got that kid from the Pilbara to where I am today. It’s what America just showed the world. The people who change history aren’t the ones who stopped being afraid. They’re the ones who hoped anyway.

For the kid in a remote town who has never seen anyone like them make it. For the migrant family who bet everything they had on this country so their children could have more. For the young person afraid to tell anyone who they really are. For everyone who started with no advantage and dared to dream big anyway.

So yes, it feels dangerous to hope right now. Hope anyway.

Genuinely has to be one of the smartest, insightful politicians I have ever heard speak. Defy anyone to listen to this man and not be impressed by him.
He’s absolutely brilliant

Yeah, but socialism…
😳😩